HELLO again!
It’s nice to be back.
Have you been anywhere nice recently?
I took a week off last week.
Well it was a Bank Holiday weekend with the bank holiday actually on a Friday for a change.
It led to a deluge of complaints from avid readers about the absence of this blog.
You know who you are sir.
I suppose I set a bit of a precedent by writing a blog on Good Friday.
But that was so early on in the lockdown that I felt a duty to keep public morale up.
Oh, and I did have quite a lot of things to write about.
Several weeks on and the ideas are a bit more thin on the ground and so a day off seemed like a good idea.
I also fancied making the most of the VE Day weekend.
If there is one benefit to the current situation it perhaps gives us all more time for reflection.
Up and down the land it seems many people took the opportunity to mark this momentous anniversary.
Perhaps the incredible fundraising efforts of war veteran Captain Tom Moore had provided a timely perspective for a country experiencing a unique situation.
Alongside his physical efforts to walk lengths of his garden, his message to an uncertain nation that: “Tomorrow will be a good day”, resonated with those of all ages.
His story certainly reflects the strange times we are living in.
As my ‘Harrogate Correspondent’ emailed: “If I told you six months ago that someone would raise north of £30m, receive an RAF flyby and reach number one in the ‘hit parade’ with no noticeable singing talent (notwithstanding Little Mix/One Direction and many others!) for walking around their garden 100 times you’d think me bonkers!”
And so I think many of us marked the VE Day anniversary – whether you attended a social distancing street party or not.
Last Friday I observed the two-minute silence at 11am to remember all those who made sacrifices in the Second World War.
I listened to the broadcast of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s speech at 3pm, 75 years after he addressed a rejoicing nation to signal the end of the war in Europe after six long and destructive years.
We had tea, sandwiches and cakes outside in the sunshine, watched the film ‘Churchill’ (which is not as good as ‘Darkest Hour’ with Gary Oldman, whatever its star Brian Cox says) and then sat together to watch the Queen’s speech at 9pm.
I have to say I didn’t share the enthusiasm of much of the media about her speech.
Perhaps because it was broadcast at 9pm, the same hour her father, King George VI, addressed the country exactly 75 years before, and because Her Majesty lived through the war and must have so many unique reflections on it, I expected something memorable.
It wasn’t particularly uplifting, it wasn’t poignant, she could have been emotional but didn’t show it.
Mind you, it wasn’t the worst speech I’ve heard in the last week.
We only had to wait until 7pm on Sunday evening for that.
It had been teed up as a ground-breaking address that would provide clarity, guidance and hope to a grateful nation.
Instead Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s TV address left us all more confused than we were before.
And he and his ministers had to spend the next few days clarifying what he had said.
He had enough time to prepare for this moment.
And when it came he seemed to forget the two key rules of effective communication: decide on your message and then communicate it clearly.
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A COUPLE of newspaper headlines caught my eye over the last week or so.
First The Sun’s front page story about scientist Professor Neil Ferguson whose advice led Boris Johnson to put the UK on lockdown, who quit his government advisory role after he broke social distancing rules to meet his married lover.
“Prof Lockdown broke lockdown to get his trousers down.”
And secondly the headline on the front page of the Sunday Times above a photograph of the flamboyant rock n’ roll star Little Richard who has died at the age of 87.
It echoed the words of his first hit, Tutti Frutti, which was said to herald the birth of rock n’ roll.
“A-WOP-BOP-A-LOO-BOP-A-LOP-
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Parky’s video clip of the week
Little Richard’s death last week sees the passing of a true pioneer of rock n’ roll.
He didn’t just inspire contemporaries like Elvis but greats that came later like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Prince.
Enjoy him performing his first big hit Tutti Frutti on a 1950s TV show and watch how his band performs – and the wonderful couple dancing
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What I’m looking forward to this week.
AS part of the VE Day commemorations there were plenty of war films broadcast on television.
I watched A Bridge Too Far, the 1977 film about Operation Market Garden, the Allied assault against the Nazis in Holland in 1944.
When I saw the listing in the TV pages it said the film starred Dirk Bogarde and James Caan.
But these were just the first two names of an ensemble cast listed alphabetically.
It starred a staggering number of big names including: Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Hardy Krüger, Laurence Olivier, Ryan O’Neal, Maximilian Schell and Liv Ullman.
With that kind of cast, If they had decided to list all the actors according to their star status then they’d still be arguing about the billing today.
Despite the big names, the film was rather unsatisfying – and that is not just because Operation Market Garden failed.
Most of the stars appear to be going through the motions on screen while, given it is an American production, the Brits are portrayed as slightly ineffectual and definitely to blame for the failing to capture Arnhem – the bridge too far of the title.
I heard a fascinating interview on Radio 4’s Today programme last week with military veteran Colonel John Waddy, who celebrates his 100th birthday next month.
He was in the Parachute Regiment, serving in North African, Italy and then dropped into Arnhem where he was wounded several times and captured by the Germans.
After the war he served as director of the SAS, became a military advisor in Washington and Vietnam and then at Westland Helicopters and was an advisor for the film ‘A Bridge Too Far’.
It was clear from his interview last week that he didn’t look back at the experience very fondly, having been told by director Richard Attenborough that his influence would only be on the military accuracy and nothing else.
I would have much preferred to watch a film of Colonel Waddy’s life.
If you’ve got any recommendations of favourite war films they would be welcome.
After ‘Churchill’ and ‘A Bridge Too Far’, I need to view something decent.
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Reasons to be cheerful
OSCAR Wilde said: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
And in a way that can apply to a blog too – the worst thing is people not reading it.
So I was delighted when a friend of mine who has recently changed his email address dropped me a line to say he had missed out on my last blog.
He asked if his new email address could be added to the distribution list.
Delighted, I said of course it could and offered to forward him a copy of the blog that he had missed.
He told me not to worry, his partner had received the blog.
“She told me what you had written about. She said you’d written about someone who had died, you seemed quite cheery despite lockdown and then had tried to write something funny.”
Seems about right to me.
Have a great weekend.